Brass Knuckles and Butterfly Knives
by SusieWhitlock
Summary: As if going through puberty hadn't been hard enough, a tortured young man struggles through his daily life learning to control his ability to read the mind of everyone around him. Can a brazen girl back home teach him what it takes to keep it under control or will their powers consume them both until their very last breath?


**Author's Note:** There is an idea floating around in my brain. Let us see where it takes us.

 **Disclaimer:** Characters belong to Stephenie Meyer.

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 **EPOV**

 _Far From Home – Five Finger Death Punch_

City lights blurred in the distance. Faceless people walked by without a clue. On wobbly legs I fell back against the brick wall in a dark alley way, desperately trying to catch my breath. With shaky hands I tangled my fingers into my hair and bit back a scream. I chewed on my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, reveling in the white hot pain that distracted me from the lump in my throat. It was all too much. The roaring chaos of mindless chatter. The blinding headlights of the cars cutting through the night. Sensory overload slammed into me like a truck.

"Inhale, exhale. Come on, Mace. You can do this!" A large body shoved me deeper into the dirty alley, urging me with encouraging words to keep it together. It felt impossible.

I shook my head. Falling to my knees, I didn't bother to catch myself when my body collapsed onto the cement. "No," I wept openly. Tugging fiercely on my damp bronze locks."I can't! I CAN'T FUCKING DO IT! PLEASE, MAKE IT STOP!"

Emmett stooped low, grabbed the front of my shirt, and hoisted me up with ease before slamming me into the sharp brick of the building behind me. Without warning a sharp smacking sound filled the alley. That was when I realized the fucker slapped me. Momentarily distracting me from the voices. "There! Hold onto that. You can do this, Edward. I promise. Deep breaths, little brother. Focus."

Ever since I can remember, I've heard the thoughts of the people around me. Growing up on the outskirts of Forks, Washington, it was years before I had the mental capacity to understand that I wasn't normal. Wasn't human. At first my undeveloped brain heard soft whispers. Like being spoken to by someone with a gentle voice from across a room. Around my twelfth birthday, after being privately tutored for most of my life, I was enrolled into the local middle school. My parents assumed that my ability would never get any stronger, that I finally showed signs of normalcy. Oh, how wrong they were.

As if it happened the day before, I recalled the loud siren that cut through all of the voices in my head. It took three EMT's to strap me into the cold plastic stretcher. The sound of my screams echoed in the minds of everyone around me and I could still feel the terrifying fear hovering over me like a ghost that lingered in the afterlife. Every couple of years, the voices got louder and I could hear them from farther away. Puberty to me wasn't limited to chest hair and a deeper voice.

After that incident, my family moved to Alaska where the population greatly diminished compared to anywhere else in the United States. For five years we lived in the solitude of an endless winter. I sulked around our property convinced that a demon resided deep within me, slowly turning me into a mad man by feeding off of my soul.

"Edward?" Emmett brought me back to the present with his voice. He snapped his fingers in front of my eyes and tapped my tear stained cheeks. "You have the strength to get through this, Mace. Trust me. Look at how far you've come already. Make the choice to control it."

The smells of the alley in downtown Chicago wafted through my nostrils when I checked back into reality. I nodded in time with my breathing exercises. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Slowly the voices webbed away and the drumline in my head calmed down like a steady heartbeat.

"Thanks, Em." I whispered with exhaustion.

"Don't mention it," he sighed. Sliding an arm behind my back, he practically carried me across the street towards the private entrance of our hotel. It felt like we were in that alley for hours but I knew it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes.

It wasn't often that I dealt with the panic attacks from the overwhelming force of a million thoughts passing through my mind like a gateway. In the past two years as I moved steadily from small towns to vastly populated cities, I worked on my ability as if it were a muscle I could strengthen. More often than not, I discovered that I was in over my head and I would flee back to our home in Alaska like a wounded animal. Only now, at eighteen years old, I felt stronger than I ever did. In the morning, the remnants of the night would became nothing more than a bad dream.

"Are we going back?" Emmett asked quietly while the elevator climbed it's way upward to the penthouse.

"No," I said firmly, leaning against the wall of the lift. "I think can handle it. Normally I'd be dead to the world after an attack but I'm still standing. Sort of. So that has to count for something."

"I'm proud of you," my brother declared. Smiling like the Cheshire cat, he clapped one of his giant paws onto my shoulder practically knocking me down onto my knees. I shot a glare at him but he took his hand back and laughed.

Emmett was dressed in all black. He thought of himself like a bodyguard whenever we went out to test my ability in a new place. The joke had been explained to me on several occasions but I failed to see the humor in constantly needing someone to watch over me like a babysitter. Then again, if it wasn't for the 6'5" brother of mine with the physique of a bodybuilder, I don't know where I would have ended up. Probably getting picked apart in a psych ward somewhere.

The mirror in the elevator showed me what a mess I truly looked like. Slicking back my sweat soaked hair, I noticed that my clothes wouldn't survive rolling around in the muck of the alley. Alice is going to kill me. The dark grey Henley shirt she gave me for my birthday had a hole in the side and the faded blue jeans she gave me for Christmas the year before were caked in mud. Although my black Air Force One's seemed like they would pull through and I thanked whatever higher power there was for small miracles.

"You better shower before Esme gets home," Emmett mused, glancing at his watch. "They'll all be back soon and she's going to kill me if she sees you like this. Remember that one time you got beaten up by the cop in Arizona? I got the silent treatment for weeks."

"I won't hold that against you. The blonde you were hitting on at the bar was on point. My ass would have done the same thing," I laughed, shoving him when the elevator finally reached our floor.

"Yeah, whatever. Go shower. You reek, man." Emmett shoved me in the direction of my room and I grinned.

With a smile still in place I jogged to the bathroom, hopefully not leaving any traces of mud behind on the marble floors, and shrugged out of my clothes. Once I turned the knob for warm water, the cascading spray of the shower brought with it a calming silence. I couldn't tell you why the sound of running water muted the voices when headphones or loud music couldn't, but I never dwelled on it for too long. Trying to make sense on the in's and out's of being able to read minds seemed a bit superfluous. Instead I stepped into the warm stream and reveled in the white noise.

Tomorrow, I would tell my family that they could sell the house in Alaska. I was finally ready to go back home. I was finally ready to go back to Forks.

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 **End Notes:** Yes or no?


End file.
